Do you have to have the Bose receiver to run the Bose speakers?

Question

the reason im asking is because i have seen the 5.1 speakers sold seperately for about 1000 bucks, but i have not seen the receiver itself sold alone, so can you use you own receiver to power the speakers or are there some proprietary speaker connections that only work with Bose equipment? If not, how many watts would you need from your own receiver to get a similar sound from a Bose receiver. I know some will say , just buy the right equipment from the start, but id still like to know?

Answer 1

The AM system runs the whole system thru the Acoustamas module. It is designed to work with a nominal 8 ohm impedance output. The individual small cubes do not have the required band pass circuitry to work with a full range signal that a normal connection would have.

A lifestyle system is a complete closed loop and is not upgradable, will NOT work with any other products except Bose Lifestyle products, etc..

I would agree that Bose is over priced and returns only minimal value. If you would like a small footprint system, there are many companies that are loads cheaper or offer huge returns is sound quality over Bose for the same price.

I would look at orb audio for a speaker set, and Denon/Onkyo for a receiver to start and see what a sound difference.

But you are the one that needs to be happy. I will say that most Bose customers are initially happy with the purchase, but latter when they want to expand or fix a component they stop being so real fast.

Answer 2

Why Bose?  You can do much better  for much less.  If $1000 is your benchmark, you can get a fantastic set of speakers for that price.  Look at Boston Acoustic, Paradigm, maybe even JBL.  My fav are Cerwin Vega.  Any of these will blow Bose away.

http://reviews.cnet.com/surround-speaker...

Answer 3

No you don't.  I am not a fan of bose so anything you read hear is just my opinion, but I have heard that to get a truly good sound from bose speakers you need to use a bose reciever.  That may be them (bose) saying that to sell more recievers.  Depending on what and at what level you are trying to do $1000 for speakers is a lot, you can definitly get great speakers for under that.  I feel most like the bose because they are easier to hide since they are so small.  But if you insist on getting them I would recommend that you have  a reciever that has about 100 watts per channel

Answer 4

bose ??? they both are way over-rated (marketing) and they are good at it. they are in most stores(easy access) ifrom what i gather,you are favoring 5/channel 6 , 7 , and in that case look for a good intergrated,(pre/amp-power amp in one) and put the most money you can afford in speakers.(not bose) a good sorce is e/bay.a better place audiogom.com take your time do some digging ,go to some high-end audio/vidio stores . do some reading . make it fun then when your ready then do it .....hope this helps....